


Mind the Gap

by notaverse



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Community: hc_bingo, Gen, Panic Attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-27
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-26 14:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notaverse/pseuds/notaverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jin's day off in London doesn't go according to plan - not that he can remember the plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mind the Gap

**Author's Note:**

> **Title:** Mind the Gap  
>  **Fandom:** KAT-TUN  
>  **Rating:** PG  
>  **Genre:** Angst  
>  **Disclaimer:** Not mine, damnit
> 
>  **A/N:** For the hc_bingo square 'nervous breakdown'.

The train's pretty crowded but it's nowhere near as bad as the Yamanote at rush hour - Jin still has space to breathe, though that's not such a bonus when the woman next to him is wearing enough perfume to bathe an elephant. He takes shallow breaths and hopes he doesn't end up smelling like old flowers for the rest of the evening. The young man behind them doesn't seem to care, only interested in the music blaring from his earphones. That's a lot like home, too. Young people talking amongst themselves or plugged into their gadgets; harried mothers trying to keep their kids in line; older men reading the paper; students buried in textbooks.

Only the languages are different. London's as much a melting pot as New York. Jin hears words he can't even begin to identify. There's even someone speaking Japanese in the carriage, too low for him to make out more than the odd word, and in concentrating on the familiar sounds, he almost misses the calm, clear English announcement playing overhead.

Of course he'll mind the gap. The doors slide open and a woman barges past him with a bright pink suitcase, desperate to escape with her luggage before the train leaves again. He follows, careful not to hit anyone with the bag dangling from his wrist, and stops dead on the platform.

This is his station, right?

 _Isn't it?_

Jin fights his way through the stream of people rushing both into and out of the train, ignoring all the annoyed glares he receives from people who couldn't care less that he's not even sure he's in the right place, till he hits a wall. It's only half a dozen steps but by the time he reaches it, he feels like he's spent a couple of years in a warzone.

He clings to the wall like a lifeline because it's the only thing that's not moving. The platform settles down as the train moves away, to be replaced by another before long. Jin scans the signs for help. Is he at the right station?

Which station _is_ the right station?

He breaks out in a cold sweat when he realises he doesn't remember. He doesn't recall which station he's come _from_ , either.

Okay. Deep breath. This is just one of those temporary blips, like when the cameras start rolling and he knows he's supposed to say something but there's nothing in his head, and the silence goes on and on until someone else breaks it, someone whose tongue and brain are on regular speaking terms and don't just send each other birthday cards every year. He always catches up eventually and then everything's okay, even if he still has trouble finding the words he wants.

He'll remember where he was going. He'll stick by the wall for a bit, try to stay out of everyone else's way, and it'll come back to him.

He leans back against the poster on the wall - advertising some bestseller he'll never read - trying to gauge his location. There's a 'Way Out' sign on one side, and another leading to the Piccadilly Line. That doesn't help. Did he mean to get out here, or change lines? Which line is he even on?

Maybe he could ask someone. Everyone's in a rush, but perhaps... No, because if he asks anyone where he is, they'll think he's gone mad.

It's stuffy down in the tunnels. Heat and dust and that awful floral perfume, still lingering in Jin's nose. Breathing through his mouth only makes him speed up, taking rapid, shallow breaths one after the other, because there's no fresh air down there and no sky and no time and...

Time. Okay, he has that. He might not know where he is, but he's always wearing his watch. He's got the time. It doesn't help him to know that it's nearly seven. He can't even tell which seven until he catches sight of orange electronic text on the boards overhead. It's evening. That's a good start.

Fingers curl into fists, pressed against his thighs, shopping bag hanging heavy by his side. He doesn't dare set it down, not in London and especially not in an Underground station, where it could so easily be knocked aside by the crowd. There's not much room in the tunnels. He could be knocked aside too, stumbling across the faded yellow lines to fall to the tracks below.

That's just paranoid. He has to stop thinking like that. The ceiling could cave in too, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen.

Another train pulls away. When the platform clears, Jin notices a line map on the wall, marked in black. So far so good: he's on the Northern Line. His present location is also marked: Leicester Square.

It means nothing to him. Now he knows where he is, and he knows when it is, but he still has no idea why he's there. It should've come back to him by now. He's waited and waited and there's _nothing_. Maybe he could go through the barriers upstairs and ask at the office if they can read his Oyster card to find out where he's come from...but that still wouldn't tell him where he's going, why he's here, and the idea of trying to explain it to a total stranger in English is too intimidating to contemplate.

Not that he thinks he'd have an easier time trying to do it in Japanese. In Japan, he might be recognised, might have someone come up to him and ask if he's okay, if he needs assistance, because it's not exactly normal to be huddled against the platform wall, shivering despite the uncomfortable warmth of the tunnels. Here, everyone's in too much of a rush to notice.

Jin doesn't even know what he'd do if someone stopped to speak to him. Let loose a torrent of panicked babble and confusion? Or mouth silent words that run into each other because he's got too much to say and no idea how to say it?

His fingers untuck themselves from his sweating palms, begin drumming frantic, disconnected beats against his legs. This is no good. This is too fast. This is only going to make things worse.

He has to move. He can't stay here forever. Maybe if he goes up to the station, something will jog his memory. Maybe he's being met, and he's been keeping some poor soul waiting for who knows how long? Maybe he's...

No more maybes. Jin twines the handle of the shopping bag through his fingers and takes his first steps towards the surface.

Always the escalators. London seems to have more of them than Tokyo, but they don't work as often. Standing on one makes Jin feel like he's accomplishing something, actually going somewhere, though he's not moving at all. Not under his own power.

He swipes his Oyster card across the yellow circle when he reaches the barrier, then finds himself another wall to shelter against. The station exits bear street names, not numbers; they mean nothing to him. Nor do the dozens of people passing through, none of whom look familiar. No one's waiting for him - not here, at least.

But there's one thing he can do now which he couldn't do underground - make a phone call.

It's almost half three in the morning in Japan, and the bill's going to be horrendous, but mailing won't do and there aren't too many people he can talk to about this.

Jin checks his phone. The signal's not strong, inside the station, but it'll do. Going outside would be too much like abandoning the only sanctuary he's got right now.

His emergency contact, as always, remains the same.

"It's the middle of the night, Jin." Kame sounds like he only got to sleep an hour ago, which is probably true. "Can this wait till morning?"

Jin can picture it now, Kame slurring and bleary-eyed, hair sticking out at all angles, bare skin on soft sheets, a stylish zombie but a zombie nonetheless. "Sorry." It's the first word he's said in...he's not sure.

He's also too quiet. "If you're drunk-dialling me I'm-"

"I'm not!" Jin tries to speak up. At least no one around him is likely to be able to follow the conversation. "I'm just...I'm...um..."

There's a rustle from the other end - Kame sitting up, probably, and his voice is a little clearer when he speaks again. "You're what?"

"I...don't know where I am. I mean, I know where I am, but I don't know why I'm here."

"You're in England, filming a movie with Keanu Reeves. That's why you're there. Are you on something?"

"No!" Jin wants to spill everything out at once, to have his words slither to the floor, black oil on the ground. They burn his throat coming up but he can't keep them back. "I'm not on anything, but I was on a train. I was on a train, and then I left it, and now I'm at a station and I don't even know if it's the right station because I don't know where I'm going, or which station I came from, or-"

"Wait," Kame interrupts. "Slow down. You don't know which station you came from?"

"I don't remember," Jin says, equal parts miserable and embarrassed. "I don't even remember boarding the train."

"Okay, what _do_ you remember?" Kame's using that voice now, the one he reserves for calming stressed out idols and skittish animals. It's been a while since Jin's heard it. "What's the last thing you remember before being on the train?"

"Um..."

"Let's try working forwards. Do you remember getting up this morning?"

"What day is it?"

"Um...it's still Saturday for you."

Saturday. Okay. Jin can do this. Saturday. _Saturday._ What was Friday? Friday was work, he knows that much. Friday night they filmed until after two; it was almost four when he finally tumbled into bed. Saturday...yeah, they've got Saturday off.

Bed at four, and then...

"I got up around noon," Jin says. He remembers the time only because he'd been woken by housekeeping staff knocking on the door. He'd told them to come back in an hour. "I didn't have work today."

"That's a good start. Can you tell me what you did after getting up?"

"Um..." Jin tries to think about this logically. Showering? Dressing? He rubs a finger over his upper lip. Definitely not shaving. "I had to leave the room so they could clean it. I went- did I have food? I must've gone for something."

There's no shortage of coffee shops in London. Jin's nearest isn't a Starbucks but a Costa. Would he have gone there?

"Costa was kind of crowded," he recalls. "I had to queue for a while."

"Costa?"

"Like Starbucks, but darker. I had..." Hands peeling paper, moist under his skin. Crumbs on the table. "I had a muffin. Chocolate chip. I wanted something sweet. I...uh...I needed the energy."

Kame chuckles, because he understands only too well what it's like to have to watch what you eat for work. "You don't have to justify it to me. It's your day off; you should treat yourself. Where did you go afterwards?"

"I..." Jin plays it through in his mind. Waking up, getting ready, leaving the hotel. Coffee. The girl sitting by the door. "I saw this great silver skull T-shirt that made me think of you, and when I asked the girl where she bought it, she told me to go to Camden. It seemed like a good time to go shopping for presents."

"Tell me about Camden."

Jin does. He tells Kame how it makes him think of Harajuku without the idol shops, clothes in larger sizes but just as offbeat. A market of a million sights and sounds, of gleaming metal and magical colours. His mental tour takes him past tattoo parlours so rough even Koki wouldn't dare venture inside, past tourist shops with tacky 'I (heart) London' bags, past framed paintings of the city at night, sadly too large for him to take home.

"Did you buy anything?" Kame asks.

"It looks like it." Jin takes a peek inside the bag. There's a black and turquoise scarf, which he thinks is for his mom, a collection of bracelets which could be for almost anyone he knows, and a black and silver T-shirt that he knows immediately is for Kame. "Yeah, I got you something."

"Thank you. I look forward to it."

"It might take a while to get it to you."

"I'm pretty sure you can manage to find a post office somewhere in London."

"Not the way I'm feeling right now." Jin tries for a laugh, hoping it doesn't sound as shaky on the phone as it does to him. Talking to Kame's helping a lot because he's no longer alone, he's got a lifeline on the phone, pulling him to safety with a comforting, familiar voice and encouraging words.

But Kame's not there.

"How about after the shopping? Do you think you were going back to the hotel? Maybe somewhere else?"

"Um..." The bag doesn't reveal anything else of interest, not even any receipts he could use to time his purchases. "Camden's...it's closer to my hotel? Leicester Square's a lot further down the line."

"So what's in Leicester Square?"

"No idea."

Jin feels cold now he's no longer down on the platform. Cool evening air rushes in from multiple exits, catching him on all sides. His sweatshirt's not doing much to keep him warm. He huddles closer to the wall, frantically trying to push his memory past the shopping. He needs to know where he's going, if he's supposed to be somewhere.

"Keep trying," Kame says. "You're doing well. It's evening for you now, right? So maybe you were going to eat something?"

"By myself?" Jin doesn't like to eat alone. Food tastes much better with company. "I doubt it."

"So maybe with someone else, I don't know." Frustration creeps into Kame's voice. "Have you made friends over there? Do you have people to hang out with?"

"Always." Jin's working with very mixed company - respected Japanese actors, an international star, a promising director, and let's not forget those horses - and he doesn't have any trouble, now, finding someone to talk to. "Everyone's really friendly, even the guys at-" He stops, flashing on a conversation he'd had yesterday lunch with some of the studio staff.

"Jin? Still there?"

"Yeah," Jin says slowly. "Still here. Um...I think I got invited to dinner tonight. We were talking about finding a Japanese restaurant and some of the locals chipped in with suggestions." And like that, it's all there, memories waiting for him to pick up. Turning down an offer to have his nose pierced, hiding from the rain in a Caffe Nero and playing peek-a-boo with the baby girl at the next table, getting lost on the way back to the station, and finally, boarding the train. "I've got directions in my phone somewhere. I'm...I'm late. They'll be wondering where I am."

"Are you still going?" Kame asks, his tone making it quite clear he thinks it would be a bad idea.

Jin agrees. He's going to have to call and explain why he's not coming - and furthermore, why he left it so late to call - but that's still easier than sitting around a table, trying to make small talk, to smile in the right places and laugh at the right times, when all he really wants for now is to reach somewhere safe. A hotel room's not home but it's quiet, it's private and if he wants to be alone with his thoughts, he can be. He can run through his memories as many times as he wants, to check they're all still there, that they won't blink out like lights in a storm the next time he takes his eyes off them.

"No. I'm going back to my hotel." He knows where to go, now. Back downstairs, on the Northern Line, heading north. He can get room service, maybe, something he can take his time over while he fills in another entry in his spreadsheet. When, where, and how long. What he lost this time, and how he got it back. It's never taken him this long before. "I don't...I don't think I'd be very good company tonight."

"Go get some rest," Kame suggests. "You've been working pretty hard lately."

"Look who's talking."

"Okay, but I'm not the one making panicked long-distance phone calls because he's lost his bearings."

"Fair point." And this is definitely going to do horrible things to his phone bill. "I should go before I get cut off again. Thanks for talking me through it, Kame. Sorry I woke you up." Jin's very fond of sleep; waking a sleeping person is, he's convinced, a betrayal of the highest order.

"It's...okay." Kame yawns. "I can sleep in today. You didn't completely ruin my night."

"Good. Um...it's...I've..." Jin wants to tell Kame it's not the first time, but he gets the feeling Kame already knows.

"Just go back to your hotel room. If you've got something else to say, say it on Skype so you don't have to pay for it."

He can do that. They're both highly competitive: one word from Kame can make Jin all fired up, prepared to do battle...but another word can calm him down just as easily, because Kame has the kind of confidence Jin needs. Even when he's not totally certain, he keeps forging forwards with all his might, a light to guide Jin home in the dark.

"Yeah. I'll...I'll talk to you later."

When Jin hangs up he finds half a dozen messages asking where he is, if he's still coming, and before he ventures back down the escalator he sends a response, claiming a bad headache. It's not entirely false - he can feel one coming on, not unexpected now the tension is ebbing away. He's still far from settled, but he's not alone. Kame won't leave him to flounder by himself.

By the time Jin returns to Japan for the brief interval between work in the UK and the US, his spreadsheet has another four entries, his Skype call log has another nine chats with Kame, and his phone bill would give a millionaire nightmares. There's a gap, somewhere, between the life he wants and the life he has, and when he least expects it, he loses another piece of himself down the crack. Kame's helped him to retrieve some of them.

Others have gone for good.


End file.
